The Cretaceous-Tertiary, or K-T, extinction event is the most widely known mass extinction event in Earth's history due to its nom de plume "the death of the dinosaurs". Occurring approximately 66 million years ago, the K-T led to the mass-extinction of three-quarters of all plant and animal species on the planet. The reasons for such devastation to life are linked to increased volcanic activity and climate change caused by a meteorite impact or mass lava flow that occurred at the time. The meteorite impact has been identified at Chicxulub on the Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico. The mass lava ejection occurred at the Deccan Traps, off the coast of Western India.
The Chicxulub collision created the same amount of energy as 100 teratonnes of TNT, a billion times the power of the atomic bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Research confirms the incoming projectile created giant firestorms and tsunamis that vaporized much of the Americas. A dust cloud formed in the atmosphere reducing sunlight for up to ten years devastating plant and marine life. Across the other side of the world, the Deccan Traps exploded out of the Earth, as basalt lava flowed out of the mantle for tens of thousands of years covering up to 1.5 million km², approximately half the size of modern India. Both of these events lead to the extinction of 75% of all species of plant and animal life on Earth.
The fact both events occurred 66 million years ago, at the time of the
K-T extinction, supports many research hypothesis. However, there is a further geographical correlation between Chicxulub and the Deccan Traps. The locations are approximately the opposite side of the planet from one another taking into account plate tectonic movements over 66 million years. It is the hypothesis of this paper the kinetic energy the Chicxulub impact created the Deccan Traps with the single event acting as an assassination of life on the Earth. A simplified analogy is a gun shot to the head - a high velocity projectile enters one side of a pressurized sphere, as it slows to a stop inside the enormous kinetic energy is transferred forward and explodes out of the far side. A further hypothesis is this type of event has occurred multiple times throughout Earth's history and each time has led to a mass extinction event.
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Planet Earth Assassination Theory
Non-FictionThis theory proposes the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs hit the Earth and acted like a bullet entering a skull so the mass extinction 65 million years ago was not just a global catastrophe but also a planetary assassination.
